Yesterday was the first chance I had to play with the new version update, and with the site being down most of the day, I had a chance to see how well these builds fare. With the generous buffs granted to the Spiritseeker rings and other pet equipment (thank you, based sempai), Cold pets have finally reached a point where they can be considered good for Campaign use. I don't have time for more detailed explanations of these builds, but I've had a few people ask me to post these builds, so I'm glad to provide Grimtools and general build concepts and then flesh out the posts later.

Hybrid Pet Build Series?
Yes, I have a few other pet builds that are designed to be hybrid pet builds. It's a common complaint in Grim Dawn that pet builds are designed only to buff pet skills / party wide buffs while the Summoner just sits there as a buff-bot. DaShiv's Dracarris Incarnate is the gold standard of hybrid pet builds, where the gearing and skill allocation allows both Summoner and pets to rack up large amounts of damage to proc "On Enemy Death" abilities that pure Summoners wouldn't have the chance to use.

And as Bysmiel as my witness, I will have a usable Death Knight pet build for these forums, even if I end up driving myself mad.

What constitutes as a hybrid pet build?
For all intents and purposes, a hybrid pet build is a build that incorporates pet-scaled pets while also investing in abilities whose primary purpose is damage (at least up to soft-capping the skill, if not a full overcap). For the Trickster, it's 16/16 Savagery combined with the Winter King Hat skill, while for the Ritualist, it's 26/16 Bone Harvest with the 2-H transmuter. As such, hybrid pet builds much take care to combine Summoner damage bonuses and pet damage bonuses, while taking particular care to steer pets away from damage spikes that can easily spell their demise due to a lack of Health / resistances a full Summoner would provide.

Which build is more viable?
As always, my builds come with the caveat that I haven't taken many of my ideas to AoM yet (time constraints + more ideas to test, really), but if I had to choose between the two, Trickster comes with a lot of RR to deal with high-resistance enemies better, much better secondary resistances, and Primal Instinct fits this build really well, while Ritualist is the trash-cleaner extraordinaire and doesn't have to auto-attack to get the most use of its abilities. Dying God really hampers the Ritualist's ability to sustain itself, while the Trickster has a much worse time with AoE. I'd have to say the Ritualist is more viable at the moment simply due to how much better synergy there is with the equipment - the Ritualist is the first one of my pet builds that don't require any MI's at all.

Equipment alternatives?
When I was playing with this on v1.0.4.1, I was using Elite Wendigo Spellweaver Spaulders for the Shoulders and Mythical Mogdrogen Sigil for the medal while using a Bloodsworn Signet MI for resists. Between the Mythical Spiritbinder Glyph granting Cold damage and the nerf to Runebound Topaz, I needed to switch things around as Trickster has heavy trouble finding decent OA / DA to fight Nemeses.

The Shaman's buff to Primal Bond means that any additional point in it brings about 3% pet crit damage, so the Legwraps of the Tranquil Mind fit in perfectly, as not only did it provide OA and enough Spirit to place all 105 attribute points in Physique (and thus more DA for the Trickster), it gave our pets an equivalent 6% Crit damage. With the second Spiritbinder Glyph in place to shore up Trickster Cold damage and pet OA, the Shoulder and Medal slots became the MI slots for resistance purposes. Well-rolled Kupa MI pants go great as well, but if you find Kupa pants that fit so well, you're likely not going to be using them for a trash build like this one.

For components, since the OA from Seal of the Night got nerfed, you can very well go with Coldstone and give your pets more Cold damage. I like having as much initial OA as possible so Savagery and ABB land properly, but the choice is up to you.

What should I do with the 2 open devotion points?
I currently have them on the Stun Resist on Empty Throne and the first node of Bysmiel for OA and pet damage. You're sadly just one Eldritch short of choosing the first Leviathan node, so you have to find other ways to place that point. You have the option of replacing Viper with Kraken using up the last available node, but I think the 3% OA and the 20% RR multiplier is far too useful to give up. If you want to keep the set-up and just change the final node, there's Ulo's 10% Elemental Resist, Dryad's 10% Poison Resistance, Typho's 5% Armor, Empty Throne's 8% Pierce Resistance, or Crossroad's 5% Health.

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NOTE: All builds that I post are directly created with GDStash (all valid prefix/suffix combos) for the purpose of testing and demonstrating what is possible.

Why aren't you using Heart of the Mountain's Chillmane Pet?
As much as I'd love to use the Chillmane pet for this build, Reaver's Hunger fits too perfectly with this concept to give up. All Skills in Necromancer (to get Bone Harvest to 26/16), Aether + Chaos Resistances, Craftable bonuses (I use Algrim for Armor), and more range and Vitality damage to Bone Harvest, this amulet is just so good for this build.

No points in Raise Skeletons?
You need 28 points in Raise Skeletons + Undead Legion for Skeletons to be useful as a DPS source, but the Corruptor's Set only has +2 to Raise Skeletons and +3 to Undead Legion among 3 equipment pieces. Comparatively speaking, the set provides +5 to Bone Harvest, which only needs 16 points to serve as a damage source (any pet build is going to invest in Soul Harvest regardless of what type of pet build the player's using). The set was clearly designed around a Bone Harvest + Primal Spirit Ritualist so I decided to gear primarily from that. Due to the Ritualist's lack of group healing that cause even Briarthorns and Blight Fiends to die way too easy if you're not paying attention, coupled with the fact the Winter King sword grants no skill bonuses Necromancers can use, a Cold/Vitality Raise Skeletons will likely be superseded by any other form of Raise Skeleton builds.

What's with your Devotions?
Kraken I chose for the sweet, sweet 170% bonuses to both Cold and Vitality damage, Wendigo Mark I've found to be better than Bat because of how long the Mark stays on enemies, making it great for tagging groups that have been feared by Ill Omen. It'd be nice to fit ACDTH somewhere, but I don't think I'll be able to combine the sustain with obtaining appropriate damage for everyone. I'm open to suggestions for how to fit ADCTH to the build.

Why Blight Fiend instead of more points in Reap Spirit?
My first idea of this build had Reap Spirit at 23/16 (with help from relic bonus), but I found myself losing Energy far too quickly and I felt even squishier than what I have currently. Blight Fiend's massive threat generation is a blessing to sow confusion and misdirection; out of the skill point combinations, this has given me the most success.

How well do you think you'll do in AoM?
This build should be able to handle the trash / Hero mobs just fine, though I'm a bit worried about the Heavy Physical hitters. At the very least, Bone Harvest allows you to operate regardless of how many pets you have standing. Moose was an absolute chore to beat with this build, so let's see how well the AoM Nemeses fare up against it...

Spoiler!

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NOTE: All builds that I post are directly created with GDStash (all valid prefix/suffix combos) for the purpose of testing and demonstrating what is possible.

Ravager, mog and glad crucible are the ultimate tests to pet builds.
I played a ritualist before, but the skeles has little health pool and no battlefield heal options like blood of dregg which make them fragile in glad crucible or in front of hard hitting mobs like grav or super bosses.

I'm kind of wondering how do this ritualist build fare against those contents? Thanks!

Ravager, mog and glad crucible are the ultimate tests to pet builds.
I played a ritualist before, but the skeles has little health pool and no battlefield heal options like blood of dregg which make them fragile in glad crucible or in front of hard hitting mobs like grav or super bosses.

I'm kind of wondering how do this ritualist build fare against those contents? Thanks!

For the most part, I primarily concern myself with campaign, and even with that, I mainly concern myself with vanilla Nemeses to determine how well my pet builds perform. I don't care too much about Crucible - I enjoy it as a final test for 100% optimized builds rather than the ultimate criterion as to whether a build is worth posting. Hybrid pet builds in general are considerably weaker compared to full summoners because combining Summoner damage - and skill point allocation to even do damage on your own - with pet Health, damage and resistances means the player is spread far too thin to compete with traditional summoners.

Based on my experiences fighting creatures like Fabius and Moose with their 120+% Cold Resistance, this particular Ritualist has no place fighting super-boss content. Wendigo Mark sustain can only do so much, but between the Dying God health costs and the build's fragile resistances when the Briarthorn bites the dust, it's far squishier than most pet builds I test through the gauntlet.

If you want a Ritualist that has a good chance at 100-150 Gladiator, there's Arm Quimson's Ritualist who has videos on YouTube of beating Hardcore Gladiator before Crate introduced the 150-170 death waves. Additionally, there's a Reap Spirit Diviner's Ritualist in the Discord somewhere that reaches Gladiator 150 fairly reliably, according to the build creator.

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NOTE: All builds that I post are directly created with GDStash (all valid prefix/suffix combos) for the purpose of testing and demonstrating what is possible.